At Statehouse, Volunteers Vital in Advocacy Efforts
For Larry Fonnest, a 72-year-old from Golden Valley, a career in public service proved invaluable in preparing him for the next phase of his life: a volunteer advocate for AARP Minnesota.
His experience included eight years — from 2014 to 2021 — on the Golden Valley City Council, training him in the best ways to address issues with state lawmakers and other public policy decision-makers.
“There’s a right way and a wrong way, and you need to understand who you’re speaking to, what their motivations may be and how best to win their support,” says Fonnest, who has lived in the 21,000-population community west of the Twin Cities for 28 years.
His persuasion skills will be on display as the Minnesota State Legislature gets underway in January and AARP pushes for a range of measures to improve the lives of those 50 and older. Among the priorities is passage of legislation that would create a restitution fund to help victims of fraud.
Also on the agenda: increasing oversight of assisted living facilities, expanding affordable housing options and making permanent a government panel focused on strategies to address the needs of the state’s aging population.
And to advance these issues, AARP Minnesota will rely on the skills and hard work of volunteers like Fonnest, one of about 120 AARP volunteer advocates in the state, according to Erin Parrish, AARP Minnesota’s associate state director of advocacy and community engagement.
“We absolutely could not do this work and have the success that we have without our advocacy volunteers,” she says. “They are the ones that have relationships with their lawmakers and they are the ones who have the lived experience that lawmakers want to hear about.”
The fraud restitution fund would be modeled after the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Civil Penalty Fund.
“This is of course a huge problem in not only Minnesota but the entire nation,” says Fonnest. “We are as an age group being targeted.”
According to the FBI, scams aimed at those 60 and older led to more than $3.4 billion in losses in 2023, with the average person losing $33,915. Money for a state restitution fund would come from civil penalty payments from fraud cases won by the state attorney general’s office. Currently, excess money from these cases goes into the state’s general fund.
Parrish says volunteers, who live across the state, often participate in AARP Minnesota’s Lobby Day, next scheduled for Thursday, March 13. Volunteers also monitor committee hearings, buttonhole legislators in the halls of the Minnesota State Capitol, make phone calls and write letters to the editor on key issues.
For the volunteers, consistency is key — as in, hitting as many political town halls as possible. “Their lawmaker really starts to recognize them,” says Parrish. “And they’re asking tough questions at those town halls.”
Jack Setterlund, a 76-year-old AARP volunteer advocate from Duluth, says he meets with state legislators and his local congressman, Republican Pete Stauber.
“I’ve been doing it long enough that I’ve got a good relationship — first-name basis — with a lot of these folks,” says Setterlund, a former mediator and lawyer. “So they’re willing to hear me out.”
He adds that older residents’ relatively high voting levels help him make his case. “It makes the job of dealing with these folks easier because they know that seniors represent such a huge voting bloc, and they’re likely to vote,” Setterlund says.
AARP Minnesota will hold an online informational session on ways you can volunteer. Join the conversation live on Tuesday, Dec. 17, at 10:30 a.m., or access the video later, at aarp.org/mn. You can also email mn@aarp.org.
Frederic J. Frommer has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, including 16 years at The Associated Press, and is the author of several books.
